icsc.org.uk

As more and more people in the public eye are being caught shoplifting, psychologists are starting to address just what it is that motivates people to steal when they can afford to pay for the items. Barbara Staib explains: “There are people who go into a store and the opportunity arises. For some reason they rationalise, they convince themselves that it’s OK – for that moment. This is maladaptive behaviour – a way of coping with things that are going on in those people’s lives.” Not the people you wish to leave your armbanduhren with!

After Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting thousands of dollars worth of clothes, she blamed her actions on painkillers that she had received from a “quack” doctor given in order to treat her broken arm a few months later. Ryder explained that the painkillers had left in a state of “confusion”. Canadian psychologist Dr. Will Cupchik has devoted a great deal of time to working with wealthy theft offenders and explains, “There are many reasons why people who have so much to lose risk so much for so little. These are people who are reasonably well off and are basically honest”. Cupchik believes that shoplifting episodes are an individual’s response to an “unfair, personally meaningful loss”.